


Prisoner of War

by samidha



Series: Of Dreams and Demons [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dean Has Powers, Dean Winchester Has Powers, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Outtakes, Psychic Bond, Sam Has Powers, See Other Series Tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 09:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11483532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: This happened in the universe of Of Dreams and Demons but is being presented as the stand-alone that it mostly is, for a variety of reasons. I almost did not post this, but it's something some people would want to see. Trigger warning for Mystery Spot, obviously--I need one for it.





	Prisoner of War

No breakfast, Sam says. No breakfast. Like this is mission critical information. Like it’s the most important thing in the world. And Sam won’t stop _looking_ at him; watching him out of the corner of his eye, yes, but also just finding every excuse to look, to _stare_ , point blank.

"Dammit, Sammy! The hell is wrong with you? Also? I'm _starving_. Did I mention I'm starving?" 

”We eat when we have at least a hundred miles under us. You’re not a starving child in Africa, Dean.”

He sighs, grumbles as his hands tighten uncomfortably on the steering wheel, the tension in the air bleeding into him. "Damn straight. If a starving kid in Africa was at a diner, his brother would let him eat breakfast."

”Actually, a starving kid in Africa would get sick off of all the crap you eat, so his brother would keep it nice and simple. Rice and mashed corn or whatever. Calm down. I’ll feed you. I just...need some.... I can’t be here. _We_ can’t be here.” Sam bites his lip and his face goes blank, like he’s being careful to show absolutely nothing. 

He looks with his mind’s eye, sees the towering rows of bricks that encase his brother, serving as most of Sam’s usual psychic defense. His eyes narrow, but if there's one thing he's learned about probing Sam's shields it is that one must never, _ever_ try that while driving. Probably best to put some road behind them first, like Sam needs. "Yeah, fine. Okay." He drums his fingers on the steering wheel a minute, then pastes a smile on his face and says "Where to? Vegas? They have good food. Ooh, I know. El Paso. Omelette as big as your head. Huh?" He risks a glance over at Sam and waggles his eyebrows.

”Yeah. Pick one.” Sam’s voice is totally flat, the words sounding far away. He is not giving an inch.

 _Oh-kay._ He'd thought they were doing better at the whole pretending he wasn't headed downstairs in a couple of months thing. Yeah, Florida was a weird, unsolved case, but he did like Sam wanted and hauled out of there without going back and ganking that two-bit con artist in a janitor suit, which was _so_ against his hunter's code of ethics, and this is the thanks he gets?

He knows better. Sam can be a little bitch, sure-- but something is nagging at him, right on the edges of his mind, like a shadow you can see right up until you turn your head and look.

He contemplates his options. He could put up with this for literally the next three thousand miles, or he could pull over, start asking questions and risk a serious migraine, or....

He takes a deep breath, twanging the line like a bowstring once to ensure it's holding firm. He grips the wheel _very_ tight, just in case of blow-back, he's not an idiot, and without so much as a hey-how-you-doin' he floods the link with as much gold as he can send in one go. He doesn't try to drown his brother, just smoothly envelops him in one thought, and one thought only--just to remind him since he seems to be forgetting: _I'm right here, dumbass. We've got time._

Sam takes a deep breath. Looks over at Dean in the driver’s seat and just... breathes long and slow. Once. Twice. Three times. _You’re here_ , he thinks. _Really here._

He feels Sam settle into the golden glow of their power, like a child curling up under a favorite blanket. He still has an iron fist around whatever he’s hiding. That’s quite obvious. But Dean can live with that. He doesn’t bother hiding his irritation. Eventually it’ll wear Sam down.

*~*~*

The rush of energy doesn’t take Sam by surprise, exactly. (It was really only a matter of time.) But it suddenly takes most of Sam’s attention. His shield wavers and shakes on its foundation under the flood of gold. He’s suddenly cocooned in emotions that are not his own. Safety and sureness that Dean feels deep inside, a bedrock of love that pushes through the bricks with a long-practiced accuracy.

Shit.

He has no idea what to feel now, what’s safe to send back of his own.

”Sorry, I just. It was bad,” he admits, wanting to turn away, shore up his defenses, but his eyes stay locked on Dean, on home and safety and love and everything that is right in the world.

Even in his head, it sounds like a whisper. _Show me._ Then firmer. _Sammy. I need to know._

”I can’t-- I-- Don’t ask me to do that, Dean.”

Dean doesn't have to be looking at him to know his defenses are coming down, but he looks anyway. Sam is suddenly awash in his brother’s emotions again. Frustration and confusion that are dwarfed by a wave of guilt so strong it knocks Sam forward on his half of the bench seat, like a punch to the gut. Then Dean tamps it down, and not a moment too soon. _I’m gonna fight this, Sammy_ , he says softly without words. Sam watches as he forces himself to look away from the road just long enough to make sure Sam heard and _understood_. Then he speaks. "Alright, man. Not right now. Not while we’re on the road. But later. Try to get some rest."

Sam nods, leans back into the seat and starts off pretending to sleep. Can’t let his guard down. Can’t let go of his vigilance. Not now and maybe not ever. He can feel again and the fear is a living thing inside of him, so strong it can bowl him over any time. Just one wrong move is all it will take.

Sam concentrates on the gold Dean sent through the wall, using it like a blanket, like a pool of safety and love that he can dip into like Scrooge McDuck swimming through all the gold in his bank vault. He smiles to himself, sends an image of the old Disney character Dean’s way and is rewarded with a low chuckle from his brother. 

”That’s my boy. Soak it up, kiddo,” he says, and Sam forces himself not to tense up at the nickname that hardly applies anymore. Dean doesn’t know yet. Thank fuck Dean doesn’t know yet.

*~*~*

They drive for exactly one hundred miles. Dean is keeping his eye on the odometer the whole time. He pulls the car off the highway at the next FOOD - GAS - LODGING marker and scoffs when he finds himself in front of a McDonalds.

”McDonalds.” He catches Sam’s gaze. ”You made me skip breakfast and now... This is what I get.”

”We could keep going.”

”Too hungry. But just so you know, this is your fault.”

Sam sighs. ”I’ll owe you some pie, okay?”

”Dinner. You owe me dinner and a pie. And I am not putting out for it.”

”Very funny.”

”Damn right I am.” 

They settle on a table at the back of the restaurant (a term he uses extremely loosely). He gestures widely. They’re on their own, a table free in every direction.

”What?” Sam asks, giving Dean a hard look that says he knows exactly what he’s about to ask.

”Not even now?”

”No,” Sam says, and his face closes up.

Dean sighs, then nods. ”Tonight. When we’re off the road.”

Sam doesn’t answer.

”You’re going to tell me.”

Sam gets up and brings his tray to the garbage can. Dean sighs and follows him outside.

*~*~*

Sam lets Dean drive for a long, long time. They’ve been seeing signs for Atlanta for about an hour before he pulls the car off the road again. He settles the car into park in the nearest lot, a strip mall featuring a Chinese restaurant and a laundromat. He gets out of the car and heads to the trunk, on the prowl for beer. He finds none. Well, this is not going according to plan. But he is adamant. He returns to his seat. Sam hasn’t moved. ”All right, Sam, you did it. I am exhausted. But don’t think you’re getting out of this.” 

”Dean, please.”

”No. Something’s... You’re being really weird and I don’t--”

Sam explodes. ”What part of _I watched you die_ do you not understand?” 

”Okay, but I’m here no--”

”A hundred and five times.” Sam says. ”I lost count, but--” 

”What?” He goes still and quiet. ”What? You’re...” _Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?_

”I’m what? You think I’m kidding you?” Sam challenges him. ”You want to see them? Is that what you want, Dean?”

”I don’t know, I-- Yes. I... I owe you that much.”

Sam takes his wrist in his hand and squeezes hard, the familiar grounding gesture now a bit painful, like Sam is daring him to say something, to back down. 

He swallows. _Show me_ , he sends again, resolute.

He watches the memories spin past his awareness. They’re all from behind Sam’s eyes. Dean watches from his brother’s perspective. _A shotgun blast. Being hit by a car. Being smashed by a falling desk._ The memories come so fast and thick, he can barely catch them as they speed past. _Being shot in the head by an arrow. Being mauled by a dog._

Sam’s emotions rocket past as well. Confusion and grief giving way to blinding, incoherent rage, then madness, the feeling of being ripped apart at the seams. He watches through Sam’s eyes as Sam burns a building down (He somehow manages to die in the fire despite the experience of countless salt-and-burns), as he takes an axe to the walls.

And then the memories slow down. He feels a wash of sudden relief, attached to the first memory Sam formed of that day. _Wednesday._ The memory moves forward to Sam holding him, cradling him as he kneels in the middle of a parking lot. Dean’s gut clenches and he feels a sudden, final snap. And a light goes out.

Sam’s thoughts are tumultuous mess. _No no no no no no no._

Darkness descends. All in one rush the grief rips through Sam, leaving him hollowed out and aching. But even the ache is better than what comes next: a yawning emptiness, wind whistling through the hollow places in his brother, until the sound of the wind pushing through the nothingness is the only thing left. Dean shivers, trying suddenly to pull his awareness back away from Sam. He doesn’t want to see this, doesn’t--

But Sam holds on tight as ever, his emptiness filling Dean, twisting around the bond and holding it close, like all the darkness of Sam’s dangerous childhood dreams dialed up to full volume and then magnified several times.

The memories won’t let him go. Time ticks by slower than molasses and he finds himself held fast by the wind and the darkness inside of Sam. He tries to buck his way free one last time but he can’t-- he-- he just can’t. He feels nothing. There is nothing of Sam left but a driven determination. One goal.

Sam lives and breathes the darkness. He hunts for months and months, out of a motel room with one wall overtaken by articles and pictures all with one common theme: the Trickster. He keeps his room in military perfection. On the table by the door he eats, always with a bottle of one or another kind of liquor, like some kind of escape plan that he rarely touches, but he keeps it there just in case the darkness threatens to overtake him.

Bobby calls and Sam ignores the messages. Until one of them brings him face to face with Bobby, a Bobby that Sam is willing to kill. His voice wavers in the darkness of the abandoned room as he realizes suddenly he may have killed his near-uncle.

But the body finally resolves into nothing, disappears as if it is in some kind of magic trick. The Trickster appears to the right of Sam’s field of vision, grinning. _Holy Full Metal Jacket_ , he says, and Sam lunges at him with the stake a second time.

Dean is dizzy with the force of his brother’s anger. He shifts in the seat, takes a deep breath and rips himself out of the memories. He can’t watch anymore. He won’t be held as a captive audience anymore. He can’t.

 _Jesus, Sam_ , he thinks, flashes back on the desperate, sudden hug Sam had pulled him into in the motel room. He sends a soft pulse of golden light into his brother, half expecting to find nothing but the endless darkness, but instead finding the windy chasm filled, nearly healed over. Sam’s familiar light pulses through him, shifting and moving in time with his heartbeat. Dean takes a deep breath, relief washing over him in wave after wave. Sam is--

_You’re all right._

Sam scoffs and shakes his head, but this time he forces his brother to meet his gaze and says it again. _You’re all right, and we’re going to fight this. If it’s the last thing I do--_

A shiver runs through Sam, hard enough that it passes into him. _Don’t. Don’t talk like that, I can’t--_ Sam says, his voice nearly choked off.

_Shit. Sorry, Sammy. Sorry. I didn’t..._

_I know. I’m sorry too._

_Don’t apologize. I didn’t know._

_It’s...raw._

_I know. I didn’t know, but I do now. Look. I’ve got you. We can beat this together. We’re _gonna_ beat this together. You believe me?_

_I have to_ , Sam says.

And he supposes, after everything, that will have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the reasons this 'verse went on forever is that it was my happy place. Another reason is that certain segments took longer to write than others. My feelings about this episode are/were complex, and this fic alone (meaning only this chapter) took 3 years of pretty regular consideration of how I was going to do it, how the guys were going to emotionally survive it with the bond.
> 
> So yes. This fic took 3 years and it was one reason that ODAD came together as a 'verse. It means it has some of the inconsistencies of a 'verse, but this was considered and beta'd all to hell before I released it into the wild. Tone wise and continuity wise, I leave it separate because this chapter can be like a complete KO for some people--it was for me. I know we're now quite a ways away from season 3, but it's something I'll always carry with me as one of the ultimate awful cold pricklies.
> 
> I hope that with all that in mind it was worth the read. 
> 
> Oh, Mystery Spot Dean. My freaking heart.


End file.
